


don't believe the hype

by theriveroflight



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anti-Soulmate Soulmate AU, Aromantic, Background Queerplatonic Alix/Max/Kim, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Minor Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Minor Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29228556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/pseuds/theriveroflight
Summary: Tikki and Plagg never liked the idea of soulmates.But they never had a pair that agreed with them on the subject until Adrien and Marinette came.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Kagami Tsurugi, Juleka Couffaine & Luka Couffaine, Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Plagg, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Tikki, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Plagg & Tikki (Miraculous Ladybug), Sabine Cheng & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Tom Dupain
Comments: 3
Kudos: 93





	don't believe the hype

**Author's Note:**

> I never thought that I would write this fic. I've tried to write an aro-friendly soulmate AU before and failed miserably. I'm still not sure about this one.
> 
> I Do Not like soulmates. I would detest living in this universe. I prefer ones that allow communication between them (telepathy, writing on skin, dreamwalking...) but I still don't like the implied amatonormativity, and clumsy fixes like "platonic/queerplatonic soulmates" still don't help, because in a way it still feels like a lack of consent.
> 
> I debated for a long time whether to post this anonymously or not. After some encouragement, I decided not to.
> 
> You might notice that this isn't really a cohesive story; it's more a series of vignettes or ficlets from it.
> 
> Title & headers from "The Hype".

one / my kind will be on my side

Marinette was one of the lucky ones, really. Her parents didn't raise her to know about soulmates, didn't tell her until she asked because  _ everyone  _ at school talked.

She still remembered her parents reluctantly showing their bond to her.

So Marinette didn't grow up interested in finding her soulmate. She would love who she wanted to love, and she knew that even without the acceptance of society at large her parents would accept her.

(When she met her grandfather, it helped her realize how exactly it was a  _ rebellion.  _ He would always choose to uphold tradition, and though Marinette had changed his mind on bread, she knew soulmates were deeper, more entrenched in society by collective fixation.)

(Marinette thought that if you married without knowing you were soulmates and then found out…did you really choose, or did that repressed bond inside you force you to choose?)

(But she never enjoyed thinking about being robbed of the ability to make her own choices.)

But as she and her peers got older, they stopped being as interested in soulmates. Marinette supposed that with growing up came maturity, and she believed that finding her soulmate before she was old enough to choose them properly waould not be good for her. If she were to choose her soulmate, then so be it — but she wanted to make that choice without that knowledge.

And then she made the mistake of writing her to-do list on her arm.

Adrien texted her a picture of his arm, with the same words — and a caption.

“I know you don’t talk much about soulmates, and I’m not one to pry, but I think you should know.”

Marinette didn’t want to be Adrien’s soulmate. She didn’t want to choose Adrien. In some ways, she once had  _ wanted  _ him, but even when she was infatuated with him she didn’t want to be his soulmate.

How could she have forgotten?

Marinette’s heart wanted Luka more than Adrien, even still. So she chose what her heart desired most.  _ Who  _ her heart desired most, and that was not her soulmate.

She doubted it ever would be again, if she were truly honest. She never wanted to hear the words “Adrien” and “soulmate” combined again.

two / might take some friends and a warmer cloak

Adrien wasn’t aware of soulmates, save for some general shoutouts in the media. He wasn’t sure whether it was a metaphor or if it was an actual thing.

It was only when he went to public school that he  _ learned  _ it was an actual thing.

(Alya and Nino  _ were  _ soulmates, and it only made their resentment for each other grow. Even being locked in a cage couldn’t heal their hurt.)

One could…write on their skin, and it would show up on their soulmate’s. It sounded like a slight mercy, because it meant that to some extent one could get to know their soulmate before meeting them, but it also felt a little bit like a curse.

Adrien wondered if his parents were soulmates. It would be an extra layer of tragedy to Mother’s passing.

He found that he didn’t want to think about that possibility. Couldn’t bear to think about it.

Being Marinette’s soulmate was…well, Adrien was uncertain what it would become. He loved Kagami. That was enough. And Marinette was his friend.

That was enough, too.

He didn’t know when he started loving Kagami as much as she loved him. But Adrien did, and never would he  _ regret  _ loving anyone. Perhaps the link between him and Marinette was a curse.

three / they might be talking behind your head

Everyone assumed Ladybug and Chat Noir were soulmates. There was, of course, no proof of that, but people proclaimed themselves “experts” and declared it. Ladybug was eternally exasperated and thanked whatever may be out there that the Ladyblog, number one resource, was never the reporter doing the speculating.

Chat Noir, at one point, said he  _ wanted  _ to be Ladybug’s soulmate, but at the same time he hoped he never knew if he was. But that was an early statement, and he has since recanted those words.

He didn’t want to be Ladybug’s soulmate. Not anymore. Something wore Chat out, made Chat less idealistic than he once was.

Everyone wondered what exactly made him such. Some speculated that he disliked his  _ real  _ soulmate. Some speculated that he and Ladybug were soulmates, and that Ladybug was somehow…disappointing, but those people were less in number than the others.

Either way, nobody ever wrote on their face. The people would never find out if Ladybug and Chat Noir were truly soulmates, and neither Ladybug nor Chat Noir seemed keen on  _ telling.  _ It wasn’t as though they could use it to communicate in battle.

People, Ladybug thought, cared far too much. Chat Noir, at first, disagreed — but as he and Ladybug developed a true partnership, they found that neither of them wanted to be soulmates.

(They both knew the inherent romance of owning the Ladybug and the Black Cat. Creation and destruction, red and green, good luck and bad luck, yin and yang,  _ partners  _ supposedly in every sense of that.)

(And they both rejected that.)

four / for my basement tapes

Luka’s soulmate was Juleka. Juleka’s soulmate was Rose. And Rose’s soulmate was Juleka.

Luka, when asked, said that he didn’t have a soulmate, because being “undestined” was superior to being mocked for having his  _ sister  _ for a soulmate, a bond they said trumps everything else, even love.

Luka didn’t believe that. He didn't believe any bond was superior to another unless it was  _ made  _ such. And Luka considered his bonds with his mother and sister most important, yes.

Perhaps whatever force made these bonds recognized that his family would always be the most important thing to him.

He wouldn’t mind going without a romantic relationship, but that wasn’t how it worked, and so he fell for Marinette. Marinette was…an amazing girl, and  _ definitely  _ not his soulmate. But that didn’t matter.

She was a spitfire, something that he didn’t think of as a true insult. Someone who didn’t believe soulmates were worth  _ anything,  _ and Luka thought that was different from everyone else, who always asked.

She never asked him. So he wasn’t going to ask her, either. Because he didn’t need to know — Marinette would love whoever she wanted to love, whether they were her soulmate or not, because she had a right to choose.

Because  _ everyone  _ had a right to choose, by virtue of being human.

five / don’t get thick skin without getting burnt

Kagami’s soulmate was dead. Who he was didn’t matter, except for when she wrote on her own skin, a rebellion against her mother, and someone who was  _ not  _ her soulmate wrote back, responding that he was dead. Caught just at the write time for someone to write on his corpse.

(It made her sick at the time, but at least it was some kind of closure.)

Kagami was never ashamed of her soulmate being dead. She always answered that, plain and simple.

But nobody ever  _ believed  _ that.

Until Adrien. Adrien didn’t ask (Adrien didn’t tell, either) but he overheard, and he just offered silent consolation.

That was what caused her to be truly enamoured. The fact that Adrien was one of a few that didn’t seem to care.

She had heard once that Paris was the city of love, of soulmates. That it was a paragon of some twisted tenet society held.

But people seemed to care less. Or perhaps that was just the people she chose to belong with.

six / dissipate

Marinette was never the only one to openly be a rebel. Somehow they all ended up in the same place.

Alya and Nino didn’t  _ want  _ to be soulmates. They were one of the classic things written about in romance, where their hate transformed to love gradually…

But they never used their soulmate bond. In fact, they managed to forget about it, tell others that they were both undestined.

Alya and Nino aren’t shy about the possibility of breaking up. The fact that they’re mated is kind of an open secret; everyone in their class knows, but they aren’t open about it, and no one tells.

Alix, Max, and Kim were soulmates. Alix was callous about telling people because she just didn’t care about what they thought of  _ her  _ and her relationships. People asked Kim about his relationship with Ondine — they were boyfriend and girlfriend, golden couple of teenage swimmers.

Alix was also openly aromantic. And she didn’t care what anyone thought of her. She would rather stay out of it altogether, but at least she was doing it on her  _ own  _ terms.

(She coped the best way she knew how — by being loud and brash and making sure everyone could hear.)

(Max was also disinterested in romance, but in a different way from Alix, and he buried his disappointment in the only way he knew how: books and reading and trying to figure out  _ some  _ rhyme or reason to this madness.)

seven / don’t know which way

Marinette asked Tikki about a wish. About a  _ possibility,  _ and Tikki wanted to say no. But one of the other boxes had created it, and Tikki and Plagg were willing to  _ unmake  _ it.

(Destiny and Choice had come together, somehow. Tikki didn’t know how Choice would have  _ ever  _ agreed to some sort of shackle on people’s ability to choose, but they aren’t in the same box. They don’t really get to…converse much, if  _ ever.) _

But Tikki wondered what the consequences would be.

When Plagg was asked, he wondered what the  _ gift  _ of it would be. Kwamis didn’t have soulmates, they were metaphysical beings, but he hated the idea of fate.

Come to think of it, both of them hated what Choice and Destiny had done, at the behest of the mage. It was supposed to make things easier, they said. Neither knew what happened to Choice, why Choice would agree to rip it away…

It has been far too long. Two centuries, if not longer. They’d forgotten the names of the kwamis. Plagg said they didn’t deserve to be named. Tikki said that perhaps they did deserve to be named — if only to be held accountable as more than just embodiments of concepts.

Even after the reveal, even when Ladybug and Chat Noir appear hand in hand, it was a gesture of  _ solidarity,  _ not romance. Oh, there was certainly love within that solidarity, but it was platonic in nature, would always be.

Because both Ladybug and Chat Noir loved someone else, and there was no bitterness in that declaration — just clarity, and happiness.


End file.
